Crossing from Sweden into Norway on the E18, the changes are subtle, yet instantaneous. Road signs change colour, speed limits are lowered, and the quality of the motorway is vastly improved.

Not that I’m complaining: I’m on a road trip with my kids, and we’ll be spending a lot of time in the car, so anything that can make the trip more pleasant is welcome. We’re headed north, but our first stop is Oslo.

Surprisingly, the main road leading from Sweden to the capital of Norway is not a major motorway at all, but a single lane affair. We arrive quite late due to a horrific pile-up in Sweden that left several people dead and us hours delayed.

The heat is still intense, and a high rise district shimmers into view like an unexpected miniature Manhattan. The rest of town is thankfully resolutely Nordic in style, with well-heeled private residences spread around the bay in which Oslo nestles.

The city is also endearingly small; when we brave the heat the next day to go down to the docks, the tourist map makes it look like a twenty minute walk – in reality it’s more like five.

We take a ferry across the sound to the (even more) affluent and posh side of town, home to many a palatial home, and three museums that I really want to see: the Fram museum (celebrating the explorers of the North Pole – many of whom were Norwegian), the KonTiki museum (celebrating one Norwegian explorer in particular: Thor Heyerdahl) and the Viking ship museum (no points for guessing which Norse explorers this involves).

Alas, due to the intense heat of the day and the curious absence of any information in Norwegian, the kids were less than thrilled with the first (in spite of it allowing visitors to clamour on board two of the vessels used) and completely exhausted by the second, so after having seen the famous balsa rafts and reed boats Heyerdahl captained (in spite of having been severely hydrophobic!), we give up.

Personally I would have loved to stay longer and learnt all there was to learn in both places, plus bought books on the different explorers AND gone in to see the third museum, but I sensed mutiny was coming, so I did what all sensible captains do: staved it off with double rations of rum. Rum-raisin, to be more precise.

Ice cream having saved the day, we carried out a tactical withdrawal and waited out the afternoon heat in the hotel pool before paying our respects to the Norwegian king in the evening. This we did by strolling around the large royal park that surrounds his home in the middle of town. This public space is very popular, and rightly so, as it is beautifully laid out. Dinner was courtesy of Den Glade Gris, a local restaurant right next to the park, where I was served the best svineknoke I’ve ever eaten, and had the dubious pleasure of paying a Norwegian restaurant bill for the first time – let’s just say the check was at least as cardiac arrest-inducing as the delicious pork!

Next day we continue our journey north, up along rivers and inland fjords, over mountain ridges and through tunnels (amongst them the longest one in the world, at nearly 25k, replete with a psychedelically lit rest stop in the middle), to finally arrive at Aurland, a settlement at the tip of one of the fingers of the Sogndalsfjord, one of the most dramatic landscapes I have ever seen.

The fjords of Norway are quite unique, their fractal-shaped branches smaller and smaller as they keep dividing, leading ever inland. It’s easy to see where the investigative nature of the Norsemen stemmed from – who could live in such a labyrinthine landscape without wanting to explore every nook and cranny? And when the land is nothing but steep mountains rising straight out of the water, travel by sea is really the only alternative, so it’s small wonder they became such excellent navigators. Equally, given what winters are like here, one can see how someone like Amundsen would propose travelling the north west passage across the Arctic by building a ship that could withstand being stuck in the ice and get pummelled by its immense powers, and then simply ride the current through, even though he estimated it would take five years!

We don’t have five years, however, only five days, so after installing ourselves in a hytte with magnificent views and bunk beds and little else, and having had a good night’s rest, we set out to explore. Nearby Gudvangen is home to a Viking village where people live as Norsemen did, all year around. It’s the week of their annual market, so the place is fair teeming with enthusiasts hawking their wares and showing off their crafts – all dressed in authentic outfits.

It’s the closest you’re likely to get to living as a Viking, and we love it: Childe One gets her hair braided, Norse style, Childe Two gets a wooden Viking sword and a Thor’s hammer (as do I), and all of us try archery and ax throwing. We draw the line at glima, however. The Viking martial art is akin to wrestling or judo, the difference being that not only do you need to get your opponent on his or her back – yes, there are women participating, too, and they’re just as fierce as the men – you also need to make them let go of you and get back up on your own feet. This means bouts go on until you’ve inflicted enough pain on your adversary for them to release you! Combatants throw and roll each other, bending limbs in unlikely ways, and it often looks like they will get horribly hurt, but they return again and again to challenge each other; some enthusiasts have come from as far away as the US and New Zealand to fight here.

The fierce fighting aside, the setting couldn’t be more peaceful and scenic: the village lies snug between mountain and sea, cascading waterfalls high above us ensuring the lushness of the valley in spite of the summer heat. In the bay, a small Viking ship lies at anchor. When a bald eagle suddenly glides majestically past the village – hounded and completely unperturbed by seagulls – it really feels as if we’re transported 1,000 years back in time.

After we have had our fill we set out on a ship on the fjord – not on a drakkar bound for Vinland or Miklagård, but a ferry that will take us to nearby Flåm. This is the best way to see the fjords, as the sheer walls towering above you on both sides really drive home how grandiose nature is, and how insignificant we are. There’s a railway from Flåm that is considered one of the most beautiful in the world, but after a full day of Viking fun plus two hours on the boat neither one of us is in shape for more adventuring, so that particular experience will have to wait for next time.

The next day we start our journey south again, driving along, over and through many a majestic mountain range before finally following the Numedalslågen river, where we stumble across a whitewater rafting opportunity in Dageli that proves a huge success with the kids. The water levels are too low, honestly, so parts of it feels slow to me, but the wee ones love it, and it is exciting occasionally, so maybe it’s as good an initiation to this kind of adventuring as they can get. They paddle along like champs, taking the helmsman’s calls of “forwards”, “backwards” and “brace” very seriously, like the Vikings they are. The two hours on the river plus the ever-present heat take their toll, however, so when we stop at an inn soon afterwards to have late lunch/early dinner and it turns out they have a room, we gladly accept.

I had planned to drive for another hour and then find another hytte, but clean sheets and a warm shower and a dip in the river late at night turns out to be exactly what everyone needed. There’s another unexpected bonus to this choice of lodging: at breakfast the next day the inn keeper asks if we are taking the trolley. Turns out this isn’t a reference to the Norwegians’ much beloved trolls – there’s a disused old railway right next door, and the inn lets trolleys to tourists.

Off we go, cycling along the railway this perfect summer day, past twee station houses, high above forest lakes and through pitch black tunnels. It’s a perfect mini adventure, and in a way it illustrates what I hoped for with this road trip – by not planning everything in great detail we allow the surprises we encounter along the way to be that much greater.

And so we drive back to Sweden. We arrive at Glaskogen nature reserve later than I had envisaged, but the kids are amazingly resilient, and we get a wonderful stuga right between two forest lakes, the dark, still waters of one overflowing into the other right at our front porch. It’s got a pump to draw water from the well, an outdoor privy and a wooden stove for heating (that we neither need nor are allowed to use because of the heat wave and subsequent risk of wildfires), and it’s the perfect end to a perfect holiday. As I sit and watch the sun set over the lake where the kids are still playing late at night, a cool, overly expensive Norwegian beer in my hand, I reflect that this kind of family time beats package tours ten times out of ten in my book. Tomorrow we will drive back to my parents and hang out with cousins, and that will be fun, too, but this is prime quality family bonding time, right here, the Norse way.